Friday, September 28, 2007

Coalition Work

Well, it didn't feel like fighting racism. Andy drove me around South Orange and Maplewood after we went to Jersey City to the accountant to do our taxes, and I dropped flyers at the elementary schools to publicize a schools committee workshop on Parent Advocacy. I like doing it, pretty well, the survey of the schools, how they smell, the kids looking cute for the most part, the sense of how each of them is a bustling little world of its own, but it feels like being a PTA parent more than a political struggle. I know the connection of course, that we're working to empower parents, narrow the achievement gap, and thus make integration work and in the long run destroy racism-- but golly making flyers and distributing them feels far away.

What would feel more like it to me? Direct action, of course, marching,yelling. Singing is good.

But for ten years my largest single political action has been through the Coalition, and it works for me in a lot of ways-- I've made friends, I've had to deal with people in a different way, and people I would never have dealt with probably otherwise, but it isn't always easy to keep the long view--

September 25, 2007

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the first day the Little Rock teenagers actually got to stay in their high school--with U.S. troops protecing them. Here's an interesting reflection on the anniversary from commentator Juan Williams.